American Indian Novels

BOOK REVIEWS American Indian Novels Gretchen M. Bataille Arizona State University 1 he stereotype of the Indian, usually male, has long been a shadow figure in American literature. Whether invisible in Hawthorne's forests, a savage in Cooper's frontier, or a noble red man evoked by Lawrence, the Indian character in fiction was one readers believed they "knew" because popular myths had been made real by constant repetition. Increasingly, however, a new image of American Indians is evolving in fiction. It is not surprising that the old images are being replaced by new views which are more complex and based in historical and contemporary realities. This change is, in part, a result of greater awareness of America's diversity; however, a new generation ofAmerican Indian writers is largely responsible for challenging old stereotypes and forcing a revolution in the image ofAmerican Indians in American literature. Increasingly, the face of American literature is becoming many-hued, reflecting the heterogeneous society of America and challenging easy assumptions about the past. The history of the American Indian novel is short by some literary standards , but it is a history that has evolved rapidly during the past twentyfive years. Following the publication of John Rollin Ridge's novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta in 1854, there were less than a dozen novels published by American Indians prior to 1968. Sfophia] Alice Callahan's Wynema (1891) was the next novel by an American Indian and is probably the first by an Indian woman. Set in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory, the novel is dedicated to Indians "who have felt the wrongs and oppression of their pale-faced brothers." Simon Pokagon (O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-i-gwa-ki) is identified as the Potawatomi author of the 1899 novel Queen of the Woods; however, his authorship has been disputed by some critics. If Pokagon did not write Queen of the Woods, there were no other adult novels written by American Indians until the 1920s. John Milton Oskison, John Joseph Mathews, and D'Arcy McNickle published novels during the 1920s and 1930s, and Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket) was the author of another early novel by an American Indian woman, Cogewea, the Half-Blood (1927). When John Joseph Mathews' novel Sundown (1934) was first published, the author was not identified as Indian because publishers at the time downplayed the ethnicity of authors, and authors themselves sought to "fit in" to Anglo society. John Milton Oskison wrote three novels (Wild Harvest, 1925; Black Jack Davy, 1926; and Brothers Three, 1935), but there was no reference to the author's Cherokee heritage, and the novels have little to do with Indian experience. Although N. Scott Momaday's novel House Made ofDawn (1968) was out 61 62Rocky Mountain Review of print when the announcement was made that it had won the Pulitzer Prize, that novel and the recognition it received signaled a change in the perception of critics, teachers, and students about the fiction by American Indian writers. Since that watershed year, American Indian literature has flourished. From House Made of Dawn to the Critics' Circle choice, Love Medicine (1984), American Indian novels have gained critical acclaim and popular recognition. Increasingly, novels by Paula Gunn Allen, Robert Conley, Michael Dorris, Louise Erdrich, Janet Campbell Hale, Linda Hogan, Thomas King, Louis Owens, Leslie Marmon Silko, Martin Cruz Smith, Gerald Vizenor, Anna Lee Walters, and James Welch are considered a part of the canon ofAmerican literature. For a genre not in existence until Ridge's publication, the American Indian novel has gained a significant place in contemporary literature. All of these contemporary American Indian novelists have contributed to the literary output as well as the critical assessment of that production. In 1983 Paula Gunn Allen edited Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs, and more recently she has focused on feminist interpretations of Indian literature in such critical works as The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986). Tom Colonnese and Louis Owens collaborated on American Indian Novelists: An Annotated Critical Bibliography, published in 1985. Joseph Bruchac, better known as a poet and an editor than as a novelist, has contributed to the...